Request

Brown and orange parts
wooden-seeming white heads
these birds do not normally
they come up to me
not sure why
come up look like ducks not
same species. One
makes demand expects
interact cannot
are not. Species must not
want, cannot be mutual
still wants come up to me.
Knows cannot “no” without
mutual. Uses.

In-take

Pause at small berries
in bushes in trees against fence
are red, blue maroon.
Once choose once
there keeps being good
cannot believe
are everywhere.
Stop from:
most shriveled.
Not for eating
those eat them, not human.
Berries are muted
for human at mauve,
eat dark grey.

Amanda Auerbach is currently completing her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her first book, What Need Have We For Such as We, was published by C&R Press in November 2019, and her poems have appeared in the Paris Review, Kenyon Review, Fence, and Conjunctions.